Indeed, why do I not feature self-published books on The Season sites? I did at one time, in the very beginning. Like the scales (I’m a Libra), I wanted to be fair, to give all romance writers an opportunity to have their books featured on the site.
They say one apple can spoil the whole bunch. Well, to some degree that’s what happened here. I had an author renege on their promise to send an entrant of a contest their book. Yes, I featured their book for an entire month and the author agreed to give away a copy of her book, but when the time came to send the book, she became non-communicado. I know what you’re going to say, that can happen in both cases, for mass market paper books as well as self-published. I know and it did. I’ve had New York published authors fail to send books they promised. But what this instance did was open my eyes to the life of a self-published author.
They pay for everything. And I mean everything, which includes promotion, advertising and author copies of their books. The very paper it’s printed on. It’s not a cheap venture and in fact gets darn expensive. And their ROI (return on investment) is meager if anything at all. Most will end up in the red. Who buys most of their books. They do. They are encouraged to buy their books on a regular basis by the publisher–discounted, of course. And because they pay for everything, because their books are not readily available on the shelves of your local Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble or Borders, a reader would have to search out these self-published books online. They’d most likely be POD (Print on Demand), which means you could order them from online bookstores or perhaps special order them from B&N, Amazon or Borders.
Now let’s say a reader is willing to do that for this self-published title, which in most likelihood has had little to no exposure to the reading public, at the end of the day 99.9% of readers will suffer a sticker shock price at the cost of the book. Even if you look beyond the fact that the reader has no idea whether this book was professionally edited etc, most readers of fictional works will not part with over $20 for a book by an unknown author from a self-publishing house. I recently saw a historical romance title for over $30. Sticker shock indeed!
Book buying is really the only extravagance I currently allow myself. Why? Because books are relatively inexpensive. This passion of mine, this entertainment costs me not even $6 (I usually shop at Walmart for my books, where they are 30% off retail). I can get a $7.99 Lisa Kleypas for a steal. I don’t normally buy trade books, but even on the rare times that I do–like I will be purchasing Maggie Robinson’s Mistress By Mistake even though I’ve already read it, it’s just that good–I can purchase it for around $10 at discount. A far cry cheaper than the twenty or thirty something dollar for a self-published romance.
When it comes down to it, that is one of the main reasons I don’t have self-published novels on my site. They are just too expensive for the average romance reader. Believe me, I’m not saying that a self-published author’s work is not on par with e-published or NY published authors’ works. I’ve read enough unpublished manuscripts to know that’s not the truth at all. I’ve often scratched my head wondering why NY publishing houses turned down a novel I felt was better than many novels I’ve read. But on the on the other hand, I’ve read samplings of self-published books which I felt desperately required, at minimum, a proof-reader. But like everything, you’ll find the good and the desperately needs an editor when it comes to self-publishing.
But that’s my personal opinion. What about you? Would you buy a self-published book? And would you be willing to part with $20 and upward for this romance novel? Agree, disagree? Let me know.
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Check back tomorrow, when I’ll be interviewing Monica Burns and chatting about her new release, Kismet. 
Being honest here I admit I would never buy a self-published book. Like you, books are my only extravagance and there are so many great releases out there it’s not even easy to buy them all. I even started reading YA books and they’re even more expenssive than a regular (let’s say…) historical 😉
Maybe if I had enough means and heard good reviews about a self-published book I’d buy it, but in this state of things… nope, sorry.
I would never buy a self-published book (at least not knowingly)
I would buy one, but I will not spend more than $6 or $7 for it. Not until I knew the author a bit and could rely on the quality of their writing. Not self published, but even for NY published like Diana Gabaldon…I worked up to buying her books in hardcover. The first one I bought was because it was a great value! $7.99 and it was like a 1,000 pages. So it is important to get value for my limited dollars available to buy books.
I haven’t even started buying trade unless I can find them used, just because I can’t afford the expense. So, I can’t imagine buying a self-published, especially not knowing the quality, for the steep price.
I don’t think I would buy self-published. The price being the big factor. I am sure there are good ones out there, as you say, good MS are turned down all the time. But I am sure there is a lot of sub-par self-published works out there, more so than published ones.
If someone has money to toss down the drain, I guess this is one way to go. I see why it is also called ‘Vanity Publishing’.
I have so many I want to read/buy that aren’t self-published that the time factor for me pushes self-pubs to the very bottom of my list. I don’t think I’d refuse to purchase one because it’s self-pubbed; it’s just not a priority for me. Very few self-pubs make that transition to the big market and, unfortunately, there’s probably a reason for that. That said, though, Brunonia Barry’s The Lace Reader was self-pubbed at first and now it’s a NYT bestseller because of the fervor book clubs built about it. Because of that “one in a million” possibility I might miss the best book ever, I’d never scratch a self-pubbed book off my reading list.
I wouldn’t pay the high price for a book whose quality is questionable. I don’t buy hardbacks of authors I love because of the high price, so I don’t think I would ever do the same for self-published.
My big thing is definitely the price. One of the reasons that Kensington created the debut line was to introduce new authors at a price point most readers wouldn’t balk at. Their debuts until Sept 2009 were $3.99. That’s cheap. So cheap that if you bought the book and it sucked, you wouldn’t throw your hands in the air and say, well that was a waste of money. It’s the cost of a cup of coffee at some fancy coffee shop. Even now, at $4.99, I think the books are a bargain. But ask me to pay $20 and up for a book, regardless of the ‘buzz’ and I’d say, I’ll wait till it comes out in mmpb and that’s if it ever does. Or maybe, I’d try to find it in the library. There are so many things going against self-published novels being successful, I’m surprised the self-publishing companies stay in business. But the truth is they make money off authors not from readers buying the book.
@maered I’m like you with hard cover. Johanna Lindsey used to be my favourite author. When she went to hard cover, I would wait until the mmpb came out then next year. I buy too many books to spend that kind of money on just one book.
For me i live in Australia and when i go and purchase a book it would be from $15 and upward. is that a reasonable price? would anyone spend $15 and upward for a book? In target they would hardly have historical romance but once in a while they would have some but impatience of me i go purchasing the same book for more than $10.
I am with Elizabeth I order my books from an on line romance bookstore here in NSW where I live and pay $15-95 each for them and that adds up when I order up to 12 a month then pay the postage as well. I can find them often in Target K-Mart of Big W for around $9-00 but they come out a long long time usually after their release date in the States. You can pick the trade paper backs up in these stores for around $19 and I am happy to pay that if it is a book I really want.
Books are my extravagance and I work hard so as I can buy them.
Have Fun
Helen
Bev, thanks for the link and throwing me in so close to Lisa Kleypas, LOL!
I have a friend who has self-published poetry, but that’s different, I think. In all the years I wrote before I got my New York contracts, it never once occured to me to go the self-publishing route (for one thing, the $ issue would deter me). I know exactly how competitive and “odds-against” publishing is, and I’m sure there are millions of excellent writers who haven’t caught their break yet—but I would probably not buy a self-published book. I have too many things I want to read already that I can’t make time for.
(And I’m a Libra, too. Aren’t we well-balanced? 😉 )